Follow this link to my BLOCKBUSTER STORY of how Brett Kimberlin, a convicted terrorist and perjurer, attempted to frame me for a crime, and then got me arrested for blogging when I exposed that misconduct to the world. That sounds like an incredible claim, but I provide primary documents and video evidence proving that he did this. And if you are moved by this story to provide a little help to myself and other victims of Mr. Kimberlin’s intimidation, such as Robert Stacy McCain, you can donate at the PayPal buttons on the right. And I thank everyone who has done so, and will do so.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Some Words on the Shuler Case

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst
conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime. I recognize that this might sound like an
incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in
other words, you don’t have to believe my word.
You only have to believe your eyes.
So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

So this is further coverage of
the Shuler case, which has fascinated me in various ways. One of the real shortcomings on the liberal
side of things is the complete failure to incorporate the views of anyone but
Roger Shuler. Bill Schmalfeldt, for
instance, claims that he has an ethical duty as a journalist to contact
subjects of his reportage for contact, but he has evidently made no effort to
seek out the views of Rob Riley, Liberty Duke, Jessica Garrison, Attorney
General Luther Strange, Judge William Pryor or the Shelby County Sheriff’s
Department.

So, for the last few days I have
been contacting people connected to all of the above and doing other research
on Roger Shuler. You can see where I wrote
about order under which he was arrested, here,
about Shuler’s status as a crank, here,
and his possible unauthorized practice of law, here.
There are, of course, two tracks that are keeping my interest: the (in my mind)
unlawful detention of Roger Shuler, and the awful reporting of Bill
Schmalfeldt. Let’s start with the Shuler
stuff and my own reporting.

Word From the Sheriff’s Office

On Tuesday, I spoke with a source
at the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. I
won’t share his name because Shuler is an extremely litigious man who sometimes
mistakes attempts to help him as evidence of a conspiracy, but he explained the
following. First, as you know, Shuler is
being charged with contempt and resisting arrest. Contrary to some claims, there was a facially
valid warrant for his arrest based on the judge’s order that he be arrested for
contempt. As it stands now, he has a
$1,000 bond set for the resisting arrest.
Reportedly he hasn’t paid it and most likely that is because there is no
point in paying it, because no bail has been set for the contempt of court
charge. In other words even if he paid
the $1,000, they wouldn’t free him because of the contempt. So in those circumstances I wouldn’t pay the
$1,000: I’d save it for an attorney. Of
course it is an open question whether Shuler will hire an attorney and whether
any attorney will be willing to represent him given reports that he tends to
sue his own attorneys, claiming they are conspiring against him (see my prior
post talking about his paranoia).

I asked that same source about
the arrest. This person didn’t speak in any
detail about it, but he did say that the arresting officer showed “an extreme
amount of discretion,” and that this source based his opinion on both video and
audio evidence. The rumors I heard (that
I have not yet verified) about how the arrest went down would suggest that
there would probably be some video of the arrest, but it wouldn’t have captured
every moment in it. That lines up with
those rumors but not enough to make me feel reasonably certain they were
true. Since this spokesperson did not
elaborate on what happened, one cannot independently verify whether the deputy
actually did use “an extreme amount of discretion.” You can take his word for it, or not and
given his anonymity you might not.
Myself, I would rather just see and hear the video and audio.

He would not comment on the
physical or mental health of Shuler (I asked about the swelling you can see in
his eye in the mugshot pictured right).
But he did indicate that they do take care of you physically and
mentally in appropriate ways.

Word from Garrison’s Attorney

Just yesterday, I also heard from
William Baxley, who is representing Jessica Garrison in a separate case from
the one where Shuler has been arrested for contempt of court. Here is what he told me.

First, the basic claim at issue
is that Garrison had an affair with current Alabama Attorney General, Luther
Strange. I also saw posts insinuating
that Strange was the father of Garrison’s son, although it didn’t say it
outright.

As for Baxley, he is a
Democrat. In fact, researching for this
post, I realized he was kind of a heroic figure. For instance, I
have told you several times about the terrorist bombing of the 16th
St. Baptist Church, in Birmingham, in which four little girls were murdered
while attending Sunday school. I only
note that the girls were black because the obvious motivation for the crime was
racism. Mr. Baxley was the Attorney
General of Alabama who successfully prosecuted Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss
for their murders. He is also famous for
getting a death threat from the head of the KKK and responding—on official
Attorney General of Alabama letterhead—“My response to your letter of February
19, 1976, is – kiss my ass.” I had first
heard of that letter years ago in undergraduate school, but frankly didn’t
remember his name until a little googling reminded me. That is unfortunate, because if I knew who he
was ahead of time, I might have also asked him how he could walk around with
cojones that big. Seriously, he told the
head of a racist, terrorist organization off.

Here’s a video from a documentary
on the Klan, discussing him and that famous letter (contrary to reports,
he was responding to an out-and-out threat):

All of which doesn’t mean his
client’s necessarily right, but did I mention I am a bit of a history
geek? So I am geeking out right now that
I talked to him. Sue me.

The significant fact for you to
take away from this is that he identifies himself today as a Democrat and has
been one since at least the 1970’s (he was Attorney General in 1970). He said he didn’t agree with ex-governor
Robert Riley Sr. (the father of the Rob Riley Jr. suing in the other case), or
with Attorney General Strange on much of anything. So the idea that this is part of some kind of
Karl-Rove-led Republican conspiracy just doesn’t hold water.

What Baxley did, in his interview
with me, is more or less play witness for the plaintiff. Of course he can’t testify in trial, but he
clearly was playing that role in the court of public opinion. He told me how when Garrison came into his office, he
assumed that there must be some grain of truth to the allegations. People commonly assume that there aren’t
people out there who just make stuff up, and truly pathological liars take
advantage of that assumption. But after a
while Baxley concluded that there was literally no truth whatsoever to Shuler’s
claims. Baxley grilled her, he told me,
he told her all the reasons why one shouldn’t sue for defamation, he pointed
out that it would be hard to get any money from Shuler (especially since he
doesn’t own any interest in the house he is living in).

And in relation to Shuler’s
insinuation that Strange fathered Garrison’s son, Baxley told me that he advised
her that she and her son would have to be subjected to a DNA test and she said
she was prepared for that. He also said
that the father of her son was her ex-husband, and that this ex-husband wrote
to Shuler and told him that the kid was definitely his. This attorney reported that the child has
apparently suffered in some unnamed way due to this man’s rumor mongering.

I also asked him about service on
Shuler and what happened there. His is
what he said happened. He said he sent
an experienced process server who waited him out for several days. They knew the Shulers were in there, they could see
the lights on, they could even see them in the windows sometimes, but they
wouldn’t answer the door. I interjected
that in Virginia you can just tape it to the door and that is good enough, and
he told me Alabama doesn’t make it that easy.
So then this process server was relieved by another one who decided to
pull a trick on them. He first made a
big show of knocking on their door, and then made a big show of leaving. Then he parked the car nearby and snuck close
to the house. Sure enough, Roger came
out of his garage and the server ran up to him.
Shuler realized what was happening and tried to pull down his garage
door but the server managed to slide it under the door before he closed it and
shouted “you have been served!”

At least that is Baxley’s account
of it. If you read Shuler’s motion
to quash service, he tells a version that lines up with much of that, only
the service didn’t quite make it in.
Which begs the question: did Shuler just leave it lying on his
driveway? He didn’t, you know, pick it
up at some point?

Seriously, I always tell my
clients, “don’t schmuck around with service.
Just accept it and deal with the rest of the suit.” Shuler’s failure to follow that course is
exactly why he is in jail today.

Baxley was also kind enough to
share the complaint but in all bluntness it is very pro-forma. There isn’t very much more than a recitation
of specific statements made that Garrison considers defamatory. Some of them were made in the main posts of
the blog, and thus were presumably by Roger Shuler. These include allegations of an affair,
presented in a conclusory fashion with no mention of any specific dates, times,
location of rendezvous, etc. You are not
given any information about who is saying it, what motivations (besides truth)
they might have, how they know this occurred, what exactly they saw, etc. It is frankly so vague it leaves you
wondering if he has any sources at all.

My source from the other day told
me that he believes that in these defamation cases, Shuler thinks he can keep
his sources anonymous. I responded,
“well, he might be allowed to keep they anonymous, depending on how Alabama’s
press shield law reads, but if all of his sources are anonymous and he doesn’t
get any of them to testify on his behalf, he is going to have no evidence and
he is going to lose his case.” I mean
barring any surprising turn of events, in both this case and the Riley case, I
expect that the men and women will swear up and down nothing went on. And then Shuler gets up on the stand and
says, “Well, my sources, told me...” and before he would finish his thought,
the lawyers would object on the basis of hearsay. There are exceptions to the hearsay rule but
it would be impossible to even hope to apply them without identifying the
ultimate source of the statement. So
they would have some evidence, whether you find it credible or not, that they did
not have an affair, and Shuler would have no evidence that they did and he
would appropriately lose on a motion for summary judgment.

Another claim Shuler makes is
that Jessica Garrison got some kind of pay out, which he insinuates is hush
money. Again, he doesn’t seem to have
very much in support, although at least this time he seems to be specific to
the amount. Interestingly, although
Shuler insinuates that Strange is the father here,
that isn’t part of the suit, possibly because the claim was not clear and definite
enough. In addition to that, unknown
commenters are being sued for writing similar things. The worst among those comments is this one:

I can see Jessica
using her powerful female parts to share with these boys just to get to the top
in Alabama and the Republican party. Strange should be indicted for his
financial arrangements with Garrision [sic] but who would do it?

Sounds like Jessica
is rising to the top by laying on her back!!!

These commenters are anonymous,
so I expect the process to involve identifying them.

Before I saw the complaint I
asked Baxley if he considered injunctive relief and he said he didn’t for First
Amendment concerns and because it is simply hard to obtain them. Later in the conversation, he did say he
might consider an injunction requiring certain content to be taken down after
the fact if they prevail, which you know before I considered the least
offensive form of injunctive relief in a case like this.

A Word From Rob Riley

I have put out inquiries to
attorneys representing Riley and Liberty Duke.
The one representing Duke felt she could not talk to me because of the
seal on the case. Riley’s attorney hasn’t
responded at all, although it might be for the same reason.

But we do get a tantalizing look
into Riley’s side of the story in an “interview” Shuler conducted. This interview constitutes him calling up
Riley over and over again (there are multiple parts to it, all on youtube, but I focusing on just one part), his conduct bordering on harassment. Still, despite all of that, there is an
interesting tidbit in one “interview” Shuler conducted. As you remember, Shuler accused Rob Riley Jr.
of having an affair with Liberty Duke, of conceiving a child with her, and of
him paying (or getting someone else to pay) to procure an abortion (which she
got). You know, because she couldn’t
just have a baby and then give it away for adoption if she didn’t want to keep
it.

Well, in this interview, at about
the 1:30 mark, Riley claims that medical records say he couldn’t have fathered
any child:

He doesn’t give him medical
records because he feels it is private.
Well, he can’t keep that completely private from Shuler and hope to win
his case for defamation. But if he had a
vasectomy or (flinch) some horrible accident or medical problem preventing him
from fathering children that would seem to be a pretty heavy slam dunk. Obviously, in that case, Shuler’s alleged
sources would be wrong, and if they were wrong on that, they were likely to be
wrong about the whole thing.

Also I will note that Riley could
not have ethically shared with Shuler all of his emails. Riley is a lawyer. Many of his emails are surely privileged. And of course if Riley offered to share some of his emails, but not let Shuler
have free reign in his account, then Shuler would just accuse him of not
sharing everything. Or deleting
them. Or whatever.

A Word From Shuler’s Wife

I have generally kept the name of
Shuler’s wife out of this, but here you can see that she apparently consented
to be videoed describing how her husband was arrested. I will note that the entirety of this story
appears to be hearsay—that is, her representation of what her husband
said. Mrs. Shuler has stated repeatedly
that she did not witness the arrest and indeed indicates that, in the video below.

But like I said, a Sheriff’s
spokesperson said that there was some video and audio of the incident. That is what I would like to see, rather than Roger Shuler’s account of it (through his wife) or the sheriff's spokesman’s conclusory defense. But for what it is worth:

A Word from @RogerShuler

Of course @rogershuler is Shuler’s
twitter account and apparently someone is tweeting from it, but it is clearly
not Shuler himself. Instead it appears
that someone hacked the account and turned it into a spambot, tweeting out
messages like “Shed INCHES FAST! lose massive body fat with the same diet
celeberties [sic] use!” and linking to some marketing site. I’d embed some of the tweets, but I am
worried that it will get my site flagged in browsers. I don’t know if the hacking was random or some
vile person decided to take advantage of his incarceration, but if it is the latter
case, that is pretty low.

You know, because there was not
enough oddity in this case.

---------------------------------------

My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the
harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get
us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten
years. I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here,
you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video
evidence. If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin
accountable, please hit the donation link on the right. And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for
snark and site updates. And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for
free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent
Historyhere.
And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

---------------------------------------

Disclaimer:

I have accused some people,
particularly Brett Kimberlin, of
reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice I want is through the
appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system. I do not want to see vigilante violence
against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett
Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on
his property. Don’t sneak around and try
to photograph him. Frankly try not to
even be within his field of vision. Your
behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to
mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his
organizations, either. And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is
that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with
contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might
report. And even then if he tells you to
stop contacting him, obey that request. That
this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that
a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else. In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that
any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.

3 comments:

While Shuler has a (slightly cracked) following and gets comments from assorted persons with blogger IDs who are not him, I had the (mainly intuitive) impression, based on content an writing style, that he indulged in sockpuppeting support in his own comment section for his posts. And, at least once he meant to post a comment as himself but either failed to sign in as himself or didn't switch out of "anonymous" mode. The comments I suspected were ones where the commenter was drawing out, or expanding on conspiracies very person to Shuler, and/or affirming his legal expertise. There are times when I do wonder if Shulers "sources" are Shulers fondest wishes or best imaginary friends.

I can confirm that he's absolutely done this. Because he must approve all comments, mine were not visible until approval (Shuler tends to do this in batches, which is not unreasonable). But, strangely, when he approved a batch of comments there were several purportedly separate anonymous commenters lauding Shuler and taking issue with my posts...posts which only Shuler could have seen at that point.

"One of the real shortcomings on the liberal side of things is the complete failure to incorporate the views of anyone but Roger Shuler."

As a liberal myself, I've been pretty disheartened by this. It's led to some fairly absurd headlines and fawning insinuations that Shuler is a political prisoner who is bravely challenging Alabama's Republican hegemony (rather than a litigious blogger who violated a likely unconstitutional injunction against which he didn't bother to defend himself). Between Carol Shuler's self-serving insinuations that her husband was beaten by Shelby County sheriffs (relying on Roger Shuler's own self-serving account) being taken as gospel and Roger Shuler's blog headlines being cited as fact (rather than flimsy allegation), it's quite absurd. Your site and Popehat have offered a far more balanced take on the Shuler matter than most sites, right- or left-leaning, and I appreciate it.

Also, as an anonymous poster on a blog I'm not a particularly good source, but I'd encourage you to look into Shuler's courtroom conduct. He's been forcibly removed from several court proceedings for threatening immediate physical violence against judges and their clerks. That leads me to place much more faith in the resisting arrest charge than any claims that Shuler was beaten for his political reporting.

About Me

Just a regular, sort of cranky moderately conservative lawyer, living in the greater Washington, D.C. and ruminating on law, life and the local spectator sport known as politics.
Btw, if you want to email me, write to edmd5.20.10 [at] gmail.com. I assume by now you understand that you are supposed to use one of those @ symbols for "[at]."